1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to digital cameras and, more particularly, to a digital camera that produces a display image signal for display on a display and a recording image signal for recording to a recording medium on the basis of a camera signal outputted from an image sensor in response to a picture-taking instruction.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An example of a conventional digital camera of this kind is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 239321/1999 [H04N5/92, 5/907] laid open on Aug. 31, 1999. In this prior art, the camera data (RAW data) of a subject image is stored to a camera data area of an SDRAM. Both the display image data for display of a freeze image on a display and the recording image data (thumbnail image data and main image data) for recording to a recording medium are reproduced on the basis of the camera data stored in the camera data area.
Herein, the main image data and the thumbnail image data are both the YUV-type of data. The YUV conversion processes for producing various ones of image data from the camera data are integrated together, and the thumbnail image data is produced by applying a thin-out process to the main image data. On the other hand, despite the display image data is in the YUV type common to the main image data and thumbnail image data, the YUV conversion process for producing display image data is carried out separate from the above YUV conversion process while separately forming a thin-out process. Due to this, in the prior art, there has been a problem of consuming excessive time before completing the process of producing display image data and recording image data. In other words, there has been a problem of consuming excessive time before completing the picture-taking process.